Just as We Have Been
by Aeris Ultimavara
Summary: Kallen faces the one battle she can't fight her way out of, but comes to understand that she isn't facing it alone.


Disclaimer: Code Geass and its characters are copyrighted to Sunrise & Bandai.

Written for the 15pairings Livejournal community.  
>Theme Set: 3<br>Prompt: 12) "Love/Hate Relationship"  
>Pairing: Kallen x Tamaki<p>

* * *

><p>"Ninety nine bottles of beer on the wall, Ninety nine bottle of beer..."<p>

Kallen could hear the voice faintly in the dark. It was muffled through a wall, but she thought she could tell who it belonged to.

"Tamaki, what are you doing?" she asked.

"At the moment I'm sitting in a cell and wearing a straitjacket. What's new with you?"

Kallen sighed. Leave it to Tamaki to be difficult at a time like this. "You know what I mean," she said. "Why are you singing like that in the middle of the night?"

"I figure if I'm gonna go out, might as well go out happy."

"That...makes sense," Kallen said slowly, unable to find something to criticize in his statement.

"You couldn't sleep either?" he asked, changing the topic suddenly.

"No," she said. "It's funny. In all the battles we went through, I was never scared. But knowing what's coming tomorrow, I am scared. In battles, I was always okay because I knew I could fight my way out of them. But now - now I can't do anything. Not one single thing to help myself."

"Hey look," Tamaki interjected, then corrected himself, "Or listen, since I can't exactly see you right now. No matter what happens tomorrow, we'll be together, right? You, me, Ohgi, all of us Black Knights. We'll be there for each other until the end, just like we always have been."

"Please don't say it so seriously like that. If even you start getting serious, there really must be no hope left." She could hear her voice beginning to wobble because of the tightness building there and the tears welling in her eyes.

"Sorry about that...Loserface."

Kallen blinked for a moment, caught off guard by the abrupt change in tone. She had been on the verge of breaking down, and here Tamaki was back to joking again.

"Loserface. That's original," she said blankly. The response came automatically, born out of many years of sparring with the man.

"Hey, if the clown shoe fits," he said.

"You would know about wearing clown shoes, wouldn't you?" came out of her mouth, again unbidden.

"Yeah, I borrow 'em out of your closet," he said

"So you willingly put on clown shoes? What does that say about your self-esteem, Tamaki? That you know you're a clown and so you dress the part?" she asked, her response gaining a bit more vigor as she began to settle into their usual argumentative routine.

"Well, what does that say about you if your feet are so huge that I can fit into your shoes?" he replied.

Kallen laughed a little at his comeback, as he hadn't yet successfully defended himself against the charge of being a clown, and had to cover her mouth so as not wake her fellow cellmates. But as she did so, she suddenly wondered how it was that she had needed to do it in the first place. Hadn't she been near crying just a few minutes ago? What was going on that she was laughing now?

"No reply, eh, Bigfoot?" Tamaki's voice came to her through the wall, and with it, the answer to her question.

"Oh please, maybe you just have girly-sized feet." Kallen said, putting as much sass as she could muster into the remark because she knew that she had to. She had to hold on to this game, this out that Tamaki had given her. He had purposely provided her with a distraction, the only one left to her now, and she was going to take it. She was going to let herself forget everything and believe that she was back in a world where death was not impendent, where she had no greater concern than coming up with one more petty insult, to win one more petty argument, just as she had in so many happier times past.

The argument went on, with the comments sometimes becoming very witty, and at others becoming very inane. But they didn't care what it was they said, and they really didn't care who won. All that was important was that they kept each other going, until finally Kallen began to yawn loud enough that Tamaki could hear it through the wall.

"Nappy time for baby Kallen?" he asked.  
>"Yes. I'm sorry but your conversation is just so boring that I can't help it."<p>

"Well, sleep tight, Dorkwad."  
>"Goodnight, Lamebrain," was the last he heard out of her until the morning, which came in a blur of cell doors being thrown open and many feet trodding towards rows of tall, white, unforgiving poles, and then wide black restraints being yanked roughly around each of the prisoners until they were lined up at forced attention for the approach of the demon emperor.<p>

Kallen looked to her right and saw the stoic face of Tohdoh. His expression held no fear, but it held no comfort either. It wasn't doing much to maintain the fragile spirits of the formerly fearless rebel leader who was now reduced to nothing but a scared teenaged girl.

She turned her face away from him and found that, by some miracle, Tamaki had been tied up on her other side. Here was a familiar face at least, and one not inclined to look so utterly grave as the last of the Holy Swords.

"Tamaki!" she cried in relief.  
>"What's up, Kallen?"<br>"I'm so glad..." she said.

"Hey, I told you we'd be together until the end, didn't I?"  
>"Yes...you always know just what to say."<p>

"Well, I've got experience with this kind of thing, remember?" he asked, and Kallen recalled the memory, forgotten until now amongst her own worries, of the end of the first Black Rebellion.

"I -" she started. She felt that she needed to tell him something, but she couldn't figure out what it was she wanted say.

"I'm glad you made it that time," she said at length.

"Aw, thanks - "

"Because I wouldn't have anyone to make fun of if you hadn't," she interrupted. She didn't quite know how to receive his thanks while that vague sense of necessity still nagged her. And so once again she reverted back to the form she knew best.

"You could've gone and looked in a mirror," he replied, and when she saw the glint come into his eye which he always got when preparing for a quarrel, her comeback died on her lips as she suddenly understood, with perfect clarity, what it was she had to say.

"Tamaki you really mean a lot to me, you know that?" The words came tumbling out on top of each other. "I don't know if I ever told you, and I don't think I even knew it before, but - "

At that moment, she felt the ground begin to shake beneath her as the vehicles for the execution procession sputtered to life. She blanched, knowing the end was swiftly approaching, and looked at Tamaki in panic.

"You worship the ground I walk on? Yes, well, that's a very natural reaction. Lots of women do," he said, as casually as if he hadn't felt the lurch of their platform beginning to move.

"Yes, keep it up until the end," she thought, grateful that even now, he was doing his very best to keep her fears at bay. It was this very thing about him that made her realize the feelings she was about to express out loud.

"Yes I do, you big dummy," she said quietly, somehow feeling as if she were light years beyond the embarrassment she might formerly have suffered upon such a confession.

He fixed her then with the kind of look that made her happy she would see someone look at her that way before she died, and said in voice more earnest than she had ever heard it.

"I've always worshipped you, stupid."

She smiled then - which she would never have been able to do if Tamaki hadn't, one last time, taught her how, and with her chin up and peace at long last settling in her heart, she listened to the rumble of the wheels beneath her feet.


End file.
